There are days when I look at my life and wonder how I can feel so behind when I’m doing so much. I’m showing up. I’m being responsible. I’m creating, serving, loving, working, caring, stretching myself—and even trying to stay healthy enough to keep up with my husband, my kids, and, so importantly to me, my grandkids. I carry vision and responsibility and heart, often all at once. I want to show up well—to give, to serve, to love those I’m here for in the best way possible, for as long as I can.
And yet, beneath it all, there’s a quiet pressure. A low-grade urgency. A sense that I should be further along by now. That I’m late. That something will slip away if I don’t keep moving. I can check the boxes, answer the messages, tend to the people, steward the calling—and still feel like I’m chasing an invisible finish line that keeps moving farther away.
Here’s what I’ve learned: that “behind” feeling isn’t about laziness or lack of discipline, and it isn’t because I’m not doing enough. It comes from doing a lot—without always being fully aligned in my soul while I’m doing it.
That inner tension isn’t asking me to try harder. It’s asking me to come home—to myself, to God, to a kind of rest that isn’t collapse but consent. And that’s hard, especially for those of us who’ve learned to perform, to carry, to stay strong. We often know how to do far better than we know how to receive.
Because what I most need to receive is rarely what I think it is. It isn’t another strategy, more effort, or pushing through one more season. What I long for beneath the striving is to be who the Lord actually fashioned me to be—not who I became to survive, to be needed, to be loved, or to stay strong. What God wants for me is inseparable from what He longs to give the world through me.
When I loosen my grip—when I quiet the noise, step out of urgency, and sit in stillness long enough to feel my own breath—my alignment begins to return. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But faithfully. What I’ve found, over and over again, is that spiritual alignment doesn’t come from striving for clarity; it comes from communion. It comes in quiet. In solitude. In listening instead of explaining.
And when my soul remembers who it belongs to, the pressure eases. The “behind” feeling loosens its grip. The race slows into a walk. That “behind” feeling is rarely about productivity; it’s almost always about alignment.
Which is why Jesus doesn’t invite us into more effort.He invites us into Himself.
Jesus gives a very different definition of “enough”:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”— Matthew 11:28 (NIV)
Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me when you’ve accomplished everything.”He says, “Come to me because you cannot.”
The world celebrates hustle.Heaven celebrates alignment.
When your soul is burdened, when your spirit is tired, when your emotions feel stretched… that’s not failure. That’s a signal.
Rest is not something you earn.Rest is something you respond to.
And when your soul is aligned, your actions carry divine efficiency.
Challenge Questions:
1. Where in your life are you striving instead of receiving?
2. What would it look like to choose alignment over achievement today?
SOAP Scripture: Hebrews 4:9-11
S: (scripture)
Read the above passage and underline, highlight, or write down passages that stand out to you. Maybe re-read it a few times if that’s helpful.
O: (observation)
Write down things you observe about the passage. Maybe it’s a word that stood out to you, something the passage made you think about, or a question that you have.
A: (application)
Write down some ways that the passage applies to your life. Make it personal.
P: (prayer)
Take a moment and pray. Ask God to make the passage practical to your everyday life.
